Nad
2007-01-11, 02:27 PM
Quick background:
My friends and I have previously run campaigns where our characters founded a frontier city and we're the mayors. We used a random chart from Dragon to increase it's size and the town quickly became the hot spot for all our other PCs to visit and build a residence. It was lot of fun and I highly recommend it to anyone who is looking for a new campaign.
Recently we've decided to give it another shot as the other campaign has been laid to rest with second edition. This time around we're tweaking the system and I would like to share this process on the boards for feedback and brainstorming. When the finished product is available, hopefully it is a simple yet useful growth system for a PC run city.
The campaign is being run in Greyhawk, so we're looking at a pretty normal fantasy medieval city approach. I'm going to be tracking the data and changes in Excel and Word so minor calculations won't be a hassle. We'll be going on a month to month basis game time.
Monthly Changes:
Population: 0-4%
The population growth needs to be almost non existent at the beginning of the city. 0-4% growth based on a random roll and modifiers, such as the month, anything happening in the previous month and other factors can affect all of this. As the city gets larger, modifiers will be applied, such as a 1% permanent increase in growth, I'll worry about that later.
When there is growth, a new immigrant will have a roll on a random chart to be established later to determine their social status, occupation and their family situation.
There will be four types of people for growth purposes: children, adults, aged adults and elderly. To simplify aging, it will be done once per year. Luckily, Greyhawk has a holiday known as the Ceremony of Turning, perfect fit! So in that month we will apply the aging.
Aging: Ceremony of Turning, 2% of children grow become adults. When a child becomes an adult they roll off the same family chart as a new immigrant. Random 1% of adults become aged adults. Random 2% of aged adults become elderly. All adults and aged adults will be tracked by 20 year incriments. If randomly they have not aged by 20 years, they automatically advance. Random 2% of elderly die.
Every city is going to have random occurances.
The DM is going to drive the plot but shouldn't be expected to bare the entire weight of this system. To suppliment the DM, a random even chart will help. I don't want to add things that the DM should, such as "Bandits Attack" or "Snakes from another Plane attack." Those should be DM driven.
I'm thinking normal city problems that would affect the mudance citizens. To keep it simple, I'm going to break it down into different categories. In the end if I merge them all into one chart for simplicity, we'll see. Please help me with anything I've forgotten, this is kind of overwhelming to think of but I'm trying to stay out of too much detail, the DM can say how someone died or what kind of disease is sweeping the city.
Events: % chance of something happening, roll on the chart
People
Accidental Death
Severe Crime
Gains a rank in society (Peasant > Shop Owner > Merchant > NPC)
Loses a rank in society (NPC > Merchant > Shop Owner > Peasant)
Leaves City
Buildings
Destroyed, occupants survive
Destroyed, occupants perish
Robbed/Vandalized
City
Disease
Weather
Wind Storm
Flash Floods
Lightning Storm
Tornado
Earthquake
Blizzard
Meteor
Trade
New trade route started
Existing trade route stopped
Crops
Insects Plague
Disease
Drought
Random
Treasure Found
Last is the economics of the city. The PCs are going to initially fund it but what kind of costs are they going to have?
Income: Tax revenue, marketplace income
Spending:Hirelings, projects
Thanks to anyone who takes the time to read this and triple thank yous to anyone offering critique, feedback, suggestions or sharing their own system.
Cheers,
Nad
My friends and I have previously run campaigns where our characters founded a frontier city and we're the mayors. We used a random chart from Dragon to increase it's size and the town quickly became the hot spot for all our other PCs to visit and build a residence. It was lot of fun and I highly recommend it to anyone who is looking for a new campaign.
Recently we've decided to give it another shot as the other campaign has been laid to rest with second edition. This time around we're tweaking the system and I would like to share this process on the boards for feedback and brainstorming. When the finished product is available, hopefully it is a simple yet useful growth system for a PC run city.
The campaign is being run in Greyhawk, so we're looking at a pretty normal fantasy medieval city approach. I'm going to be tracking the data and changes in Excel and Word so minor calculations won't be a hassle. We'll be going on a month to month basis game time.
Monthly Changes:
Population: 0-4%
The population growth needs to be almost non existent at the beginning of the city. 0-4% growth based on a random roll and modifiers, such as the month, anything happening in the previous month and other factors can affect all of this. As the city gets larger, modifiers will be applied, such as a 1% permanent increase in growth, I'll worry about that later.
When there is growth, a new immigrant will have a roll on a random chart to be established later to determine their social status, occupation and their family situation.
There will be four types of people for growth purposes: children, adults, aged adults and elderly. To simplify aging, it will be done once per year. Luckily, Greyhawk has a holiday known as the Ceremony of Turning, perfect fit! So in that month we will apply the aging.
Aging: Ceremony of Turning, 2% of children grow become adults. When a child becomes an adult they roll off the same family chart as a new immigrant. Random 1% of adults become aged adults. Random 2% of aged adults become elderly. All adults and aged adults will be tracked by 20 year incriments. If randomly they have not aged by 20 years, they automatically advance. Random 2% of elderly die.
Every city is going to have random occurances.
The DM is going to drive the plot but shouldn't be expected to bare the entire weight of this system. To suppliment the DM, a random even chart will help. I don't want to add things that the DM should, such as "Bandits Attack" or "Snakes from another Plane attack." Those should be DM driven.
I'm thinking normal city problems that would affect the mudance citizens. To keep it simple, I'm going to break it down into different categories. In the end if I merge them all into one chart for simplicity, we'll see. Please help me with anything I've forgotten, this is kind of overwhelming to think of but I'm trying to stay out of too much detail, the DM can say how someone died or what kind of disease is sweeping the city.
Events: % chance of something happening, roll on the chart
People
Accidental Death
Severe Crime
Gains a rank in society (Peasant > Shop Owner > Merchant > NPC)
Loses a rank in society (NPC > Merchant > Shop Owner > Peasant)
Leaves City
Buildings
Destroyed, occupants survive
Destroyed, occupants perish
Robbed/Vandalized
City
Disease
Weather
Wind Storm
Flash Floods
Lightning Storm
Tornado
Earthquake
Blizzard
Meteor
Trade
New trade route started
Existing trade route stopped
Crops
Insects Plague
Disease
Drought
Random
Treasure Found
Last is the economics of the city. The PCs are going to initially fund it but what kind of costs are they going to have?
Income: Tax revenue, marketplace income
Spending:Hirelings, projects
Thanks to anyone who takes the time to read this and triple thank yous to anyone offering critique, feedback, suggestions or sharing their own system.
Cheers,
Nad